How do you think about nights? Chances are, you don’t. Nighttime is time to spend time at home, at pubs and restaurants and cinemas and concerts. Or maybe escape it all and spend a few moments under the stars with a loved one (or a telescope, or TV, or an all-night codefest). But what if there were no lights to go back to?

Roger Ekirch teaches history at VT and is interested in the nights of the pre-industrial era. And, as anyone who has read Isaac Asimov’s Nightfall will know, dealing with darkness is not everyone’s cup of tea. Guess what? Earth today is not very different from the story’s Lagash. But five hundred years ago, Prof. Ekirch’s research reveals, there was a world where crime and occult thrived, and where darkened evenings eroded interpersonal barriers, a world with its own entertainments, fears — and even sleep patterns. Fascinating read.